The Swift Water, below Sky City, Malel, Tokoban
125th day of the Great Star at morning
She was scared, but she was ready and the other ejab needed her. The city needed her. They’d let her leave the healing caves for home four days after her injury, and she’d walked painfully out into a day grey as an eagle’s back and thick with rain. The Wet had come harder and faster than in previous years. It would put an end to the skirmishing in southern Yalotlan – unless the councils decided to fight on through the season, a path they were still debating – but the rain gave the Drowned an advantage, and so despite the lingering burn in her joints and the pull of stitches in her lower leg, she had a duty to perform, and so she would.
And Tayan leaves tomorrow.
The thought brought an almost physical pain. Her lifelong friend, so bright and curious and interested in everything, a skilled shaman and healer, was not suited to long travel along dangerous trails. His eyes couldn’t see far into the distance and while he could bring down small, nearby game with a sling or blowpipe, he was no warrior. And they were walking, not just out of Tokoban, but into the Empire of Songs, into its very heart. Tayan’s ancestor had told him that it would be a Pecha who ended the Pechaqueh thirst for conquest, and so the shaman and the councils were convinced that this weaving would work. Xessa prayed that he was right, but it didn’t help the cold, hard ball of anxiety that grew in her stomach whenever she thought of her friend walking into that Empire and placing himself in its power.
Focus, Xessa reminded herself. The thoughts were a distraction from the fear tickling the edges of her mind as she stared at the river, but distractions were deadly. She frowned, skin tugging with the familiar and yet strange tightness where the paint had dried in swirls and loops that brought her strength and protection. Eja Elder Tika herself had painted the red and blue symbols on Xessa’s brow at dawn, arriving at her house unannounced to do her this honour, to welcome her back onto the snake path.
Ossa was off to her right, a streak of black fur as he raced parallel to the twisting of the Swift Water, his paws kicking up stones and mud and sprays of water. She whistled and he gave her the head-down-rump-up all-clear. Xessa shook out her shoulders and wiped sweat from her eyes. The river was flowing fast, full of the previous day’s rain, brown with silt from the thin soil on the uplands above the Sky City. The murk made it harder than ever to see the skin or shape of a Drowned, and the wounds in her leg throbbed in urgent reminder of the last time she’d been down here.
She glanced left and right along the length of the river. Three other ejab were approaching the water below their own water temples. Four targets. A one-in-four chance of attack – usually.
The hairs on her arms stood up and Xessa raised her spear, trusting the warning of danger at her back. She leapt sideways, parallel to the water – not getting any closer – and spun to face the Drowned bearing down on her, poised to stab.
It wasn’t a Drowned.
Ossa hadn’t given the danger signal because there was no danger. It was Ilandeh. The Xenti wasn’t blank-faced and answering the call of the Drowned; she was standing there with an anxious smile, halfway through an apology Xessa was far too enraged to read. She wasted a second, just gaping at the other woman, and then seized Ilandeh’s wrist and began dragging her back up towards the fields and orchards and city, her heart thudding in her chest.
They got all of three steps before Ilandeh twisted out of her grip and faced the river. Xessa whirled again, bringing her spear up to her jaw, but again there was no danger, again Ilandeh didn’t run for the water. The Xenti tapped her on the arm. ‘I just want to see,’ she said slowly. ‘I’m perfectly safe with you here – I just want to see one.’
Xessa shook her head so hard the rings and charms in her ears and hair slapped against her cheeks, refusing to rest her spear long enough to sign a response – not that Ilandeh would understand anyway. Instead she pointed it uphill and jerked her chin in the same direction.
Ilandeh’s face fell. ‘But I want—’
Xessa click-whistled the guard command and Ossa leapt at the woman, snapping and snarling. Ilandeh stumbled back, face slack with sudden fear as the dog harried her, driving her up the slope. Eja Toxte was in the water temple: why hadn’t he stopped her? The woman never should have got this close.
Xessa made sure Ossa and Ilandeh were well on their way before facing the Swift Water again; best just get it over with now that her stealthy approach had been ruined. She ran forward, scanning the water, scooped up the pipe and pivoted it, dropped to one knee and let it fall into the river with a splash. No time for subtleties. She thumbed open the cap and made it to her feet just as a Drowned struck, launching itself out of the water in a spray of foam.
Xessa leapt away from its slashing claws, twisted and struck back, but it had moved, its powerful froglike legs and wide, webbed feet propelling it further upriver and then out onto the bank. It was another Greater Drowned, taller than she was if it stood upright, its arms and legs sinewy with muscle and its chest, belly and lower back protected by overlapping plates of toughened skin. Its throat sac bulged with air, its mouth of needle teeth opening wide as it began to sing.
Ilandeh!
Xessa went for it again, vaulting the pipe, right hand throwing the net she’d pulled from the back of her belt. The Drowned skittered to its right, plunging into the shallows so that the net flared and fell wide, the edge sliding off a mottled green shoulder. And then it leapt.
Xessa planted both feet and set her spear, watching it come; it was in flight, unable to change its direction, would impale itself through the belly, armour or not. All she had to do was to brace and duck the claws as it died.
Ilandeh slammed into her, sending them both stumbling ankle-deep into the river, and then the Drowned hit them, mouth wide, hands and feet extended like a cat dropping from a tree. The three of them went down in a tangle of thrashing limbs and great sheets of water crystal-bright against the cloud. Xessa’s senses were filled with the stink of it, the cool wet skin of it, the scrabbling, wiry strength as it struggled for purchase. She was fighting two monsters – one on top of her trying to rip her open, and Ilandeh beneath her, desperate to give the Drowned her throat.
By now, Toxte would be on his way, sprinting from the water temple with a net and spear of his own. She hoped he was on his way. She prayed he was.
Xessa got her right hand around the Drowned’s neck and squeezed, shoving it away, but its claws were caught in the snake-scale bamboo sewn into her salt-cotton, anchoring it to her torso. It tightened its grip and pulled, yanking her up off Ilandeh while the claws on its feet dug into the padding stitched into the front of her leggings. Padding that wasn’t going to be enough.
The grip she had on the Drowned’s throat must be preventing it from singing, because Ilandeh was thrashing to get away now, not to give herself to it, but her movements threw off Xessa’s aim and every jab of her spear missed, awkward at such close range. She dropped it and snatched the obsidian knife from her belt instead, rammed into the creature’s side and sawed. Its hide was like wood.
She had a terrifying view of all its teeth as its mouth opened and it strained towards her; its breath, cold as the river, blew across her cheek. Xessa stabbed again, missed. And then Ossa, her brave, brave Ossa, sank his teeth into the Drowned’s leg and began to pull, ripping the claws out of her padding and savaging its limb. The Drowned twisted to face the dog and Xessa tore its face open with her knife.
It turned back and swiped at her, green blood spraying, and she jerked her head away hard, fast, cracking the back of her skull into Ilandeh’s face. The claws cut through the air just above Xessa’s cheek and then the Drowned twisted again and lunged for Ossa. The dog released his grip on its leg and bounded out of reach; the eja kicked it off her, snatched up her spear and scrambled to her feet to stab it through the lung.
Ilandeh, panicked beyond reason, lurched up and yanked on Xessa’s arm, spoiling her aim and dragging her away before she could kill it. By the time Xessa had broken her nose to free herself, it was too late. With a slither and a splash, the Drowned was gone.
Xessa pivoted side-on so she could see both uphill and towards the Swift Water from her periphery. Toxte was pounding down the trail, Ekka streaking ahead. The fight had lasted seconds, though it had felt like hours in that peculiar, stretched way common to moments of terror. To left and right, the other ejab had already placed their pipes. Water would flow uphill to the city and no one was dead. This time, no one was hurt. Except her. Xessa stared at Ilandeh with vicious, all-consuming satisfaction.
The Xenti stood with both hands pressed to her face and blood leaking between her fingers. Her shoulders shook as she cried and Xessa whirled her spear around and smacked it hard into the woman’s flank. Ilandeh stumbled sideways, mouth a rictus of pain as she dropped a bloody hand to her side. Xessa pointed uphill; the woman fled. This time she neither slowed nor looked back.
About fucking time too.
Xessa turned back to the Swift Water and sucked in air as she stilled Ossa, smoothing his hackles with a shaking hand. She tried to contain her anger and failed; she roared at the water in defiance and rage and fear, sparking Ossa into a frenzy of motion. Ekka appeared in her vision and she sent both dogs out on a run to calm their jitters.
She opened the pipe joint and connected the mechanism, and then Toxte was there, his usual calm competence fled. His eyes when he reached her were spirit-haunted and wild; the magic was strong in him and a shock like this could send him into a spirit-daze – or even a rage. Xessa calmed herself – outwardly at least – and checked for the tell-tale hints of a spirit-borne fury building within him.
‘Are you hurt?’ he signed, propping his spear against his chest.
‘No. Take some deep breaths, Toxte. No one’s dead; the pipe is ready. Be calm.’ She squeezed his hand until it unclenched and he laced their fingers together. A little haunting left his face, a little colour returned to his cheeks. He nodded that he had the magic and the spirits under control and she breathed more easily.
Together they backed up the hill as Ossa and Ekka stood guard near the pipe. ‘Stupid bitch said she wanted to see the river,’ Xessa told Toxte when she was sure he was in control – and she was herself. ‘Drowned came up and sang and she nearly got us both killed. She slip past you somehow?’
The colour in his face changed rapidly again, this time flushing with embarrassment. ‘I didn’t see her pass the temple,’ he signed. ‘I’d never have let her distract you, I swear. She must’ve come the long way round.’
‘But why?’ Xessa demanded, her anger heating her again. ‘The fuck did she think she was doing?’
‘Xentib are all moon-mad,’ Toxte signed. ‘No wonder the Empire conquered them.’
Spite surged in Xessa’s heart – she understood now why the Yaloh held their former neighbours in such low esteem. Even so, it didn’t explain how the woman had got to the river’s edge undetected. She watched Toxte watching Ekka. He’d never let anyone approach an eja on duty, but maybe the magic was beginning to slow him. It took some ejab that way, even young ones, furring their decisions, slowing their reactions and capacity for clear thought. Perhaps Toxte’s time on the snake path was coming to an end.
‘Any news from Tika on when the Yaloh ejab will be ready?’ she asked. Toxte chewed the inside of his cheek and it was Xessa’s turn to blush – he could clearly see the path of her thoughts. His mouth thinned and she put her hand on his arm and squeezed an apology. ‘I didn’t mean it like—’ she began but he was already replying.
‘They’ve begun learning to control the spirit-magic,’ he signed, the gestures cold and precise. ‘Some have said they’ll do it only until the crisis is passed, but the others seem to be embracing the life. They won’t be ready before the start of the next Wet, so we’ll just have to manage this one as best we can.’
Toxte gestured and they walked back up towards the water temple, the dogs following. He didn’t look at her as they ducked inside, just loosened his armour and then began to turn the massive handle. Xessa felt the vibration through her soles and moved to the end of the pipe and the stone trough beneath. Twelve revolutions of the handle and the first splash of water spurted from the mouth and she caught a palmful and lifted it to her lips to drink. Thank you, Malel.
She touched the tears in her armour and the places where the bamboo was missing, but she wasn’t even scratched, not this time. Still alive, despite how close it had been. That was one way to come back to the duty after an absence, she supposed.
Xessa watched the muscles in Toxte’s arms flex as he turned the handle, a smooth, tireless motion. He’d braided half his hair back and she watched the pulse in his throat, steady and slow despite the effort. She tapped his arm. ‘Beer later?’ she signed, though ejab weren’t supposed to drink when the spirit-magic was in them. Most of them did anyway – the magic lasted a day and usually by the time night fell, they were starting to get the shakes and beer or honeypot was the only thing that could stop it.
‘You buy it, I’ll drink it,’ Toxte paused long enough to sign, recognising her offer for the apology it was. They were all worried about the increase in their duties, after all; Xessa just wished she hadn’t been so thoughtless. But Toxte was fine; what had happened was bad luck, nothing more. The spirit-magic wasn’t harming him. ‘And lots of it,’ he added with a grin. They were still alive and so was the Sky City and Xessa planned on celebrating that by getting disgustingly drunk. Then he gestured over her shoulder and she turned to see the first Tokob with their gourds and pitchers and buckets, waiting patiently for their day’s ration.
Xessa moved out of their way. ‘You all right here?’ she asked Toxte. He nodded. ‘I’m going to find Tayan and then the Xenti,’ she went on. ‘I want to be sure she’s absolutely clear on what I’m going to tell her. In detail.’
Toxte winced and grinned again, but he waved her off. The water sputtered in fits and splashes from the end of the pipe and into the trough as he worked the mechanism. The city lived, though the Xenti would soon wish she didn’t.
Lilla had insisted on coming along as well, and belatedly Xessa realised that she had interrupted them when they only had today together before Tayan left for Pechacan. Her narrow escape at the river had upset her more than she’d realised, especially being her first duty since her injury, and she was ruining the day for everyone else as a result.
Xessa told them she’d handle it herself, but by then Tayan was angry on her behalf. He and Lilla were closer friends with the Xenti than she was, who had to rely on others to translate for her, but that meant nothing to him in the light of Ilandeh’s incomprehensible actions at the river. Now the three of them stood ranged against Ilandeh, with Dakto just behind looking wary and defensive. Ilandeh was stroking her left thumb over the inside of her right wrist and the small tattoo of a chulul it bore. It was a nervous habit and the eja was disproportionately pleased to see it. Dakto had the same tattoo, on the inside of his bicep, though his didn’t seem to have the same power to soothe.
‘Eja Xessa would like to be very clear that you understand what you have been told.’
Xessa switched her gaze from Tayan’s face to Ilandeh’s. The woman pressed a fingertip to the swollen, bloody mess of her broken nose. A shaman had reset it, but it was swelling up nicely and blackening both her eyes, too. Xessa felt a twinge of savage pleasure. Ilandeh’s nod was a jerk and a stuttering inhalation. She cupped her nose again and said something Xessa missed.
‘She said she is very sorry and it won’t happen again,’ Tayan translated for her. ‘She didn’t mean to put you or herself in danger.’
‘And tell her to stop covering her mouth when she talks,’ Xessa signed. ‘Has she learnt nothing since coming here? Is she deliberately insulting me?’
Xessa clenched her fists as the shaman translated. She was too inexperienced to have been loaned out to the Yaloh during a drought but the thought of that now, of living with people who couldn’t understand her, made her guts watery and her chest tight. She realised suddenly that she might never be sent into Yalotlan – supposing the war ever ended – for that very reason and the tightness grew thorns and pricked at her heart. This was her home and the duty was her life, yet she felt … outcast, even unwelcome.
All Tokob signed, because without it, those ejab who used the spirit-magic would be unable to communicate while it rode their senses and so their sacrifice would also be a punishment, an exclusion from the very life and society they fought to protect.
But the Xentib didn’t know how to speak with signs and neither did the Yaloh, despite the tribes’ close relationship, and they looked at Xessa as if she was different, making her uncomfortable in her own skin as she’d never been before.
‘You nearly killed me,’ Xessa signed so angrily that Lilla took a step sideways and then came back to pat her back. ‘Never, never go near the river again. If you do, I will let them eat you.’
Tayan hesitated, but then he repeated her words aloud and Xessa watched with deep satisfaction as both Xentib nodded frantically. They signed ‘sorry’ to her, but somehow their attempt caused even more anger to burn beneath her skin, and so she squeezed Tayan’s arm in thanks and strode out of the house, straining for calm.
It was nearly time to remove the pipe from the water so the Drowned couldn’t damage it. Any distraction on her part and the encounter from earlier could be repeated – and this time with lethal consequence. It was enough – just – for Xessa to swallow the rest of her anger. Watching Ossa prance ahead of her and concentrating on the grain of her spear shaft against her palm, she stormed out of Xentibec and began the long walk back to the Swift Water.
Xessa’s house was a single room, like most houses in the Sky City, with storage in the rafters and in cool pits dug into a corner beneath the floor and mats. She and Toxte sat cross-legged inside, Xessa’s foot resting on the wooden rocker that moved when trodden on, alerting her to guests.
Ossa and Ekka lounged next to each other, big triangular ears twitching in lazy contentment. The jug of beer was cool and frothy and Xessa was laughing helplessly at one of Toxte’s jokes when Ossa raised his head and looked at the doorway a moment before the rocker jolted under her heel.
Xessa clapped twice and Tayan poked his head through the door curtain. ‘Are we interrupting?’ he signed with a sly smile and Xessa’s gesture needed no translation. Tayan and Lilla came in, and, after a pause, Dakto and then Ilandeh. Xessa’s good humour vanished as fast as the temperature in the room dropped.
‘What is she doing here?’ the eja demanded even as Toxte put his hand on her knee and gave her a crooked, encouraging smile.
Ilandeh knelt opposite her, carefully in the torchlight but not backlit so Xessa and Toxte could see her face and hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ she signed and Xessa huffed out a breath. This again. ‘It was wrong to distract you,’ she continued, ‘and it was wrong to visit the Swift Water. It won’t happen again.’
Her hands were slow and she bore a look of concentration rather than contrition, but Xessa understood. She flashed a glance at Tayan – ever the peace-weaver, it seemed, for of course it was he who’d taught her.
‘I would …’ Ilandeh tried and then paused. She swallowed hard and Xessa narrowed her eyes in suspicion. ‘I would like to learn. If you would teach.’
‘Learn what? To be eja?’ she signed, though she thought she knew the answer.
Ilandeh looked horrified at the suggestion when Tayan translated and Xessa’s chest warmed at it. ‘To sign.’
Everyone was watching her. ‘I’ll be gone soon and for who knows how long?’ Tayan signed when her gaze reached him. ‘You need another friend. You do,’ he interrupted before she could respond.
Ilandeh tapped the wood under Xessa’s foot. ‘Gift for you,’ she signed, clumsier now. Dakto handed her a basket woven from palm and she pulled from it a long cord threaded with tiny, red-dyed bones. A charm. ‘Bat,’ she signed. ‘For …’ She looked to Tayan. ‘Sight,’ she finished.
It was as if they were all holding their breaths waiting for her to respond. Ossa rose to his feet, ears up and ready for her command. Toxte put his hand on her leg again and this time left it there, warm and rough.
Sight. So I can see fucking idiots creeping up on me and trying to get me killed?
‘Thank you,’ she signed instead, and only because Tayan wanted her to. ‘It’s lovely.’ She held out her hand but Ilandeh smiled with delighted relief and scrambled across the mats.
‘… braid it for you,’ Xessa just saw before the Xentib fingers were at her temple. She sat stiff and stony until the charm hung in the mass of her hair with the others. Ilandeh surprised her again, pulling her into a quick hug and kissing the side of her face, before she hurried back across the room to Dakto’s side. Together, they unpacked a stoppered jar and some leaf-wrapped meat and cornbread. Tayan appropriated her spare cups and they filled them with beer and portioned out the food.
‘Please enjoy,’ Dakto signed, and despite Tayan’s protests – Xessa said nothing – the Xentib left them to it.
Xessa realised Toxte’s hand was still on the bare skin of her leg. She put her own over it and squeezed and the look he gave her was hot and questioning. It spoke directly to the part of her mind that watched the way he moved, graceful as a dancer, as a killer, that watched the crinkle around his eyes when he laughed and how comfortable he was in his own skin. She swallowed and then managed an embarrassed smile, wondering if the heat in her cheeks was visible to everyone else.
Tayan flicked the foam off his beer at her. ‘It’s me you’re supposed to be paying attention to tonight,’ he complained. ‘Seeing as Betsu and I leave tomorrow.’
‘That’s why we’re celebrating,’ Lilla told him with mock solemnity and Tayan flicked beer at him, too, but they smiled at each other with such mutual adoration that it made Xessa warm. She had long since outgrown her jealousy at sharing space in Tayan’s heart.
But tomorrow. Her childhood friend was leaving tomorrow, on a journey infinitely more dangerous than his meeting with the Zellih had been. She raised her cup to him in salute and together they downed the contents.
‘… you’ll be gone?’ Toxte was asking.
‘Three moons, perhaps,’ Tayan said, signing at the same time. ‘Depending on how fast we can move through their Empire. Thirty days in the Singing City to find someone senior enough we can negotiate with and get them to understand why it’s in everyone’s best interests they remain content with what they have. The Yaloh have reluctantly agreed to cede the portion of land that the Empire has already stolen in return for peace. And we can offer tithes of meat and gems, skins and obsidian.’
His body language was confident, even excited, though Lilla’s jaw was tense as he watched his husband. The warrior shifted closer until his thigh pressed against Tayan’s and the shaman broke off long enough to look up at him and rest his head on the taller man’s chest for a second. Lilla reached out and ran his finger along the pale yellow marriage cord resting on Tayan’s collarbones, its twin tied around his own throat. The cords were knotted with promises and some were hung with tiny charms that meant those promises were fulfilled. A life mapped out; a life shared.
The gesture was so strangely intimate that Xessa blushed and looked away, and was caught by the lovely planes of Toxte’s face as he watched her in turn, the broad sweep of his cheekbones and the heat of his expression. Toxte stroked her hair back from her cheek and refilled her cup, leaning close as he did. He smelt of sunlight and fresh sweat and smoke, the faint sweetness of honeyed beer.
A sudden twitch as the spirit-magic left his system and the beer slopped over the side of her cup. Xessa steadied his hand, her fingers lingering on his. When she looked up, Tayan was laughing at her again. She repeated the gesture from earlier and drank to hide a foolish grin. A knot loosened in her chest even as another tied in her gut. She was losing Tayan, for a while, but she knew with sudden certainty as her gaze returned, without volition, to Toxte, that she’d gained something – someone – else.
Warrior and shaman left earlier than usual for their own home and bed and privacy before they were separated again. The way their eyes had lingered on each other again and again sparked longing in her belly, and when Toxte, tipsy and laughing, said goodbye later that night, she surprised him with a kiss, the first against his cheek, the second grazing the corner of his mouth.
He blinked at her, hope and caution blurring in his eyes, and Xessa’s belly filled with butterflies. ‘Get some sleep, drunk eja,’ she signed, her cheeks warm, ‘and we’ll see if you remember that in the morning.’
Toxte’s lips parted and she couldn’t prevent her gaze flickering down to watch. They curved in another smile. ‘Believe me, I’ll remember,’ he signed. ‘Though I’m not sure I’ll get much sleep thinking about it.’ And he touched her cheek with his knuckles, light as feathers, and then he was gone.